Quote:
Originally posted by ericnuyt
The roller makes it I think definitively a US-sourced vehicle and not a DAF pre-war conversion. Also the body style/cover make it different from Dutch-sourced Fords. (and those would have had to be delivered/shipped before May 1940).
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I have not seen this vehicle before, thanks for bringing it back from oblivion, Nuyt!
As stated, this is a 1941 model Ford, and thus could not have been shipped from the Netherlands - it must have been converted by Marmon-Herrington in the USA. The front roller is typical for US vehicles of the early war period (M3A1 Scout Car and Half-Track vehicles).
But, if you compare it with the 1940 Chevrolet/DAF
Pantserafweer-geschut (or PAG)
trekker (anti-tank gun tractor) shown below, I draw the conclusion that it was converted along the lines of the conversion DAF carried out on Ford and Chevrolet chassis/cowls before WW2. I can only imagine the NPC taking the blueprints to M-H to order a batch to be built along DAF's design as far as practical. Take a 1-ton right-hand drive chassis/cowl converted to all-wheel drive, add a simple open-top body with canvas overhead cover, three rows of seats for the 6-man gun crew plus driver, an ammunition locker at the rear, and add a front roller instead of the two small wheels - order filled!
Do we have any clue how many of these were converted?
(Source:
http://www.autogallery.org.ru/gdaf.htm)